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Nature Research Awards for Inspiring Science and Innovating Science

Judges and Ambassadors

The Nature Research Awards for Inspiring Science and Innovating Science, in partnership with The Estée Lauder Companies, have been created with a dedicated Nature Research Editorial Steering Committee. In conjunction with our Judges and Ambassadors, our Editorial Steering Committee have worked closely with the academic community to create two unique awards and we are looking forward to working with the community to develop these awards over the following years.

The Nature Research Awards are grateful to our Ambassadors and Judges for their support.

Judges

The judging panels for both awards will be responsible for longlisting 10 candidates for each award, then shortlisting 5 candidates and picking the winner for each award. The judging panel consists of staff from Nature Research, academic scientists, external experts working in organisations supporting access to science for women and our corporate partner, The Estée Lauder Companies. Each judging panel will be independent with a Chief Judge for each award who will coordinate the judging process.

Inspiring Science Award Panel

Magdalena Skipper is Editor in Chief of Nature Communications. She is a geneticist by training. She did her doctoral work at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at CRUK in London, UK. She has considerable editorial and publishing experience: having started in Nature Publishing Group in 2001, she was Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Genetics, Senior Editor for genetics and genomics at Nature, and more recently Executive Editor for the Nature Partner Journals. She is passionate about mentorship, transparent science and clarity in science communication.

Nina Meinzer is an Associate Editor at Nature Communications. A physicist by training, she received her PhD from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology for her work on the interaction of plasmonic metamaterials and optical emitters. Her postdoctoral research at the University of Exeter began with similar studies at the nanoscale and eventually took her to microwave antenna design. She joined Nature Communications in 2016 where she looks after some of the journal’s optics content. She is passionate about science communication, open science and diversity.

Suw Charman-Anderson is the founder of Ada Lovelace Day, an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. ALD aims to inspire more girls to study STEM, and supports women in STEM by connecting them with the resources and jobs they need to excel in their chosen career. Before ALD, Suw was one of the UK’s social media pioneers, working with clients worldwide. She has also written about social media, technology and publishing for The Guardian, CIO Magazine and Forbes. In 2005, Suw co-founded the Open Rights Group, a digital rights campaigning group.

Dr Katherine (Katie) Mack is a theoretical astrophysicist who studies a range of questions in cosmology, the study of the universe from beginning to end. She currently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Physics at North Carolina State University, where she is also a member of the Leadership in Public Science Cluster. Alongside her academic work, she is an active science communicator and has been published in a number of popular publications such as Scientific American, Slate, Sky & Telescope, Time.com, and Cosmos Magazine, where she is a columnist. You can find her on Twitter as @AstroKatie.

Professor Shao-Horn is W.M. Keck Professor of Energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). Her research is centred on examining the influence of surface chemistry and electronic structures of thin films and nanomaterials on lithium storage and catalytic activity of small molecules of energy consequence and applying fundamental understanding in reaction mechanisms to design new materials for lithium storage and sustainable fuels that are critical for the deployment of clean energy and clean air technologies. Professor Shao-Horn is a member of National Academy of Engineering and is among Thomson Reuters’ ‘World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds’ and is on the Thomson Reuters list of ‘Highly Cited Researchers’, based her 250 archival journal papers and over 200 lectures.

Dr Nadine Pernodet leads the Skin Biology & Bioactives group for The Estée Lauder Companies and develops future technology for all global skincare products, including the iconic Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair. She has published over 50 articles and peer-reviewed scientific publications and is the holder of over 130 patents. Prior to her current position, she was Assistant Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in Material Science, Molecular and Chemical Engineering, and continues her relationship as an adjunct professor. Originally from France, Dr Pernodet received her PhD in Physical Chemistry from the Louis Pasteur University.

Lisa Napolione is Senior Vice President of Global Research & Development, Estée Lauder Companies, with responsibilities for applied research, advanced technologies, and product design for all brands and laboratories. Previously, she held roles as Global Head of R&D for Novartis Consumer Health and R&D VP at Procter & Gamble. Her technical career has spanned pharmaceutical drug delivery, skin and beauty science. Lisa graduated from Clarkson University in Chemical Engineering and Biology, and she currently leads their Faculty Research Sub-Committee. She is an active mentor to students in STEM, is a Women in Technology sponsor and is a YMCA Rising Star.

Innovating Science Award Panel

Mariette DiChristina is Director of Editorial and Publishing for Nature Research’s Magazines divisionleading the award-winning global editorial teams of Nature, Nature Research’s Partnership & Custom Media and Scientific American, for which she also serves as Editor in Chief, appointed 2009. She was honoured as a “Corporate Visionary” in Folio’s 2014 Top Women in Digital Media. In 2011, she was selected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is on the executive board of Science Counts. She is past president of the National Association of Science Writers in the USA as well as of Science Writers in New York, and was an adjunct professor and Visiting Scholar in the graduate Science, Health and Environmental Reporting program at New York University for the several years. Among her frequent appearances as a lecturer and moderator, she attends the World Economic Forum’s Davos and “Summer Davos” annual meetings as a Media Leader, supporting their science and innovation programming, especially around the challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies. She is based in New York.

Following her degree in Biomedical Science from Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, Mina Razzak received her PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Cambridge, UK, where she researched the synthesis of numerous polyketide natural products with anticancer properties. Following a postdoctoral research position at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, USA, she returned to the UK as an Assistant Editor for Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology and Nature Reviews Urology. She became an Associate Editor in 2013 and, following a locum role as Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Nephrology, Senior Editor in 2014. She is the launch Editor of Nature Reviews Disease Primers.

Elisa De Ranieri is the Head of Editorial Process and Data Analytics for the Nature journals. Elisa received a PhD in physics from the University of Cambridge, where she worked on spintronics devices, before becoming a post-doctoral researcher at the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory. Prior to her current role, she spent four years as an editor for Nature Communications, Nature Nanotechnology and Nature Energy, handling manuscripts in various areas of applied physics.

Treena Livingston Arinzeh, PhD, is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Dr Arinzeh has a BS from Rutgers University in Mechanical Engineering, an MSE in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked for Osiris Therapeutics, Inc and in 2001 she joined the faculty of the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as a founding faculty member of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. In 2003, Arinzeh was awarded the National Science Foundation CAREER, and in 2004 received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). She was nominated by the Governor of Connecticut to the Connecticut Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee. She is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). She currently serves as the chairperson for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering (MTE) Study Section. Dr Arinzeh directs both educational and research programs in the area of stem cell tissue engineering and applied biomaterials. She has a strong track record of mentoring undergraduate and graduate students in research, and has had a significant impact on the recruitment and mentoring of underrepresented minorities and women in biomedical engineering and the STEM fields, including being an active mentor in the American Chemical Society (ACS) Project SEED program.

Nashwa Eassa was born in Omdurman, Sudan. She is Assistant Professor of Physics at Al Neelain University. She is currently pursuing a post-doctoral fellowship in Nanophotonics at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU). Her research focuses on development of Titanium oxide nanoparticles and nanotubes structures. She holds a PhD in Physics from the NMMU and Master of Science in Material Physics and Nanotechnology from Linkoping University, Sweden. She received an Organization for Women Scientists for the Developing World Fellowship in 2008, and an Elsevier Foundation award in Mathematics and Physics in 2015. She is the Founder and President of the Sudanese Women in Science Organisation and a member of the South African Institute of Physics.

Lisa Napolione is Senior Vice President of Global Research & Development, Estée Lauder Companies, with responsibilities for applied research, advanced technologies, and product design for all brands and laboratories. Previously, she held roles as Global Head of R&D for Novartis Consumer Health and R&D VP at Procter & Gamble. Her technical career has spanned pharmaceutical drug delivery, skin and beauty science. Lisa graduated from Clarkson University in Chemical Engineering and Biology, and she currently leads their Faculty Research Sub-Committee. She is an active mentor to students in STEM, is a Women in Technology sponsor and is a YMCA Rising Star.

Daniel Hook is CEO at Digital Science. He has held many positions within Digital Science since joining the business as co-founder of Symplectic, one of Digital Science’s first portfolio companies. Most recently, he has served as Director of Research Metrics, whilst also acting as interim COO of portfolio company, Figshare. Daniel was a PhD student in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London before he joined Digital Science. In his free time Daniel continues to play an active part in theoretical physics research. His interests include PT-Symmetric quantum theory, quantum statistical mechanics and complex network theory.

Dr Nadine Pernodet leads the Skin Biology & Bioactives group for The Estée Lauder Companies and develops future technology for all global skincare products, including the iconic Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair. She has published over 50 articles and peer-reviewed scientific publications and is the holder of over 130 patents. Prior to her current position, she was Assistant Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in Material Science, Molecular and Chemical Engineering, and continues her relationship as an adjunct professor. Originally from France, Dr Pernodet received her PhD in Physical Chemistry from the Louis Pasteur University.

Sarah Shaw is Project Director for the UNESCO Newton Prize which recognises excellent research and innovation in support of economic development and social welfare in developing countries. Formally the Communications Director for WISE, the leading campaign for gender balance in science, technology and engineering in the UK. Sarah has extensive knowledge of the sector and what it takes to successfully engage with and inspire girls and young women to pursue education and employment in STEM. Sarah is also on the Board of Trustees for Remap, a charity that custom-makes bespoke equipment for disabled people, and for the Carers’ Resource, a charity providing support and advice to carers.

Ambassadors

The Nature Research Awards Ambassadors have no formal role in judging or choosing award winners. These individuals, who were selected as Ambassadors due to their contributions to STEM research and/or their support of gender diversity in STEM, will work to promote and showcase the awards and our ultimate winners.

Hasnaa Chennaoui-Aoudjehane is a Professor at Hassan II University of Casablanca Morocco, Director of GAIA Lab and Coordinator of a research centre. She obtained her PhD in Noble Gas Geochemistry from the Université Pierre & Marie Curie Paris, and a "Thèse d'état" in Meteoritics in 2007. Since 2005 she has been a member of the Meteorite Nomenclature Committee, and in 2010 she became a member of the Meteoritical Society Council. In April 2013, she was selected for the USA “International Visitors Leadership Program” and in 2015 was honoured by the US Department of State’s Women in Science Hall of Fame. Hasnaa introduced the science of meteoritics and impact cratering to Morocco and the Arabic countries and in 2014 she organized the 77th Meteoritical Society Meeting in Casablanca. She has studied many meteorites from Morocco, including the "Tissint" Martian meteorite.

Lynn Conway did pioneering work in computer architecture at IBM in the 1960s and in microchip design at Xerox’s renowned Palo Alto research lab in the 1970s. She literally “wrote the book” on very large-scale integrated chip-design, or VLSI, used by a generation of computer engineers to learn what had been “the black art of microprocessor design”. Working at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the 1980s, Lynn led a major Department of Defense initiative to coalesce the technology-base for modern intelligent systems. She then joined the University of Michigan, where she’s now Professor Emerita of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Helen Czerski is a physicist, first and foremost, but she’s acquired a few other labels along the way: oceanographer, presenter, author and bubble enthusiast. Helen graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2001 with a first in Natural Sciences (Physics), and again in 2006 with a PhD in Experimental Explosives Physics. During this time, she also worked at the University of Toronto in Canada and Los Alamos National Laboratory in the USA. A continuing fascination with the world of very fast small-scale phenomena led her from explosives to the study of ocean bubble formation. In October 2010, Helen returned to the UK after nearly four years spent working in the USA at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego and the Graduate School of Oceanography in Rhode Island. She currently works at UCL in London. Helen's TV project's have included From Ice to Fire: The incredible science of Temperature, The Quizeum, Sound Waves: They Symphony of Physics, Colour: The Spectrum of Science along with many others. Helen's first book, Storm In A Teacup, was published in November 2016.

As an internationally renowned professor of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at U.C. Berkeley, Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues rocked the research world in 2012 by describing a simple way of editing the DNA of any organism using an RNA-guided protein found in bacteria. This technology, called CRISPR-Cas9, has opened the floodgates of possibility for human and non-human applications of gene editing, including assisting researchers in the fight against HIV, sickle cell disease and muscular dystrophy. Doudna is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a Foreign Member of the Royal Society and has received many other honours including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Heineken Prize, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award and the Japan Prize. She is the co-author with Sam Sternberg of “A Crack in Creation”, a personal account of her research and the societal and ethical implications of gene editing.

Susan L. Forsburg is the Gabilan Distinguished Professor of Science and Engineering, and Professor of Biological Sciences, at the University of Southern California. She earned her AB from UC Berkeley and her PhD from MIT, followed by a postdoc at the ICRF/Oxford University. She was on the faculty at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA from 1993–2004 and has been at USC since 2004. Forsburg’s research investigates mechanisms that maintain genome stability during replication stress using a fission yeast model system. An award-winning teacher and mentor, Forsburg has a long-standing commitment to diversity in science.

Professor Bryan Gaensler is the Director of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and is the Canadian Science Director for the billion-dollar Square Kilometre Array project. He received his PhD from the University of Sydney in 1998, and subsequently held positions at MIT, the Smithsonian, Harvard and Sydney, before taking up his current role in 2015. Gaensler has authored over 350 scientific papers on cosmic magnetism, neutron stars, supernovae and interstellar gas, while his popular astronomy book Extreme Cosmos has been translated into six languages. He tweets as @SciBry on astronomy, politics and science-fiction.

Michael Kimmel is the SUNY Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University. With funding from the MacArthur Foundation, he founded the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at Stony Brook in 2013. A tireless advocate of engaging men to support gender equality, Kimmel has lectured at more than 300 colleges, universities and high schools. He has delivered the International Women’s Day annual lecture at the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of Europe, and has worked with the Ministers for Gender Equality of Norway, Denmark and Sweden in developing programs for boys and men. The Guardian newspaper has recently called him “the world’s most prominent male feminist”.

After receiving her PhD from the Russian Academy of Science, Eugenia Kumacheva was awarded a Minerva Foundation Fellowship to conduct her postdoctoral research in polymer physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Following postdoctoral training at the University of Toronto, she became Faculty at the same institution. Currently, she a University Professor at the University of Toronto. She was Visiting Professor at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, Harvard University, Moscow State University, Universitè Louis Pasteur (Strasburg) and the University of Bayreuth. Her research interests are in the area of chemistry and physics of soft matter, with the focus on polymers, nanoscience, materials science and microfluidics.

The world around us is made of ‘stuff.’ From a very early age, Suze Kundu been fascinated by this ‘stuff’, often breaking things apart to try and figure out how everything worked. Science has allowed her to turn this destructive curiosity into a career, first through a BSc in Chemistry, then an MSc in Analytical Chemistry and finally a PhD in Materials Chemistry at University College London in 2012. Continuing her quest to be an eternal student, Suze has since studied for a teaching qualification, and is now a Teaching Fellow, previously in the Department of Materials at Imperial College London and now at the University of Surrey's Chemical and Process Engineering Department. Although her research area is functional nanomaterials, as a science communicator she is able to delve into the wider applications of chemistry, physics and materials science and engineering all around us, and shares this through live lectures, as a science presenter on the Discovery Channel, on radio, and as a science writer for Forbes Magazine and Standard Issue.

Londa Schiebinger is the John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science at Stanford University, and currently directs Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering, and Environment. She is a leading international expert on gender in science and technology. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize and Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work on Gendered Innovations (genderedinnovations.stanford.edu) harnesses the creative power of sex and gender analysis to enhance excellence and reproducibility in science and engineering.

Dr. Linda Spilker is a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and has participated in NASA and international planetary missions for over 40 years. Spilker’s mission roles include mission leadership as well as design, planning, operation and scientific data analysis. As Cassini Project Scientist Dr Spilker leads a team of over 300 international scientists. She has worked in a science role on the Cassini project for 28 years and is a Co-I with the Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer team. She previously worked on the Voyager mission for 12 years. Spilker received her PhD summa cum laude from UCLA in 1992 in Geophysics and Space Physics while also working at JPL. She has received a number of awards including two NASA Exceptional Service Medals.

Shehnaaz Suliman, MD, MPhil, MBA, has been Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategy at Theravance Biopharma since July 2017. Prior to Theravance Biopharma, Suliman was Vice President, Roche Partnering. From 2010–2015, Suliman was a group leader and Project Team Leader at Genentech’s Portfolio Management Organization. From 2004–2010, Suliman held various management roles at Gilead Sciences, and from 2002–2004 she was an investment banker with Lehman Brothers and Petkevich & Partners. Dr Suliman received her MD at the University of Cape Town Medical School and holds an MBA, with distinction, and a Masters in Development Studies degrees from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

Astronomer Dr. Henry Throop has published over 50 articles on topics ranging from the rings of Saturn and Jupiter, to the formation of planets in dense star clusters, to the formation of the Earth's pre-biotic chemicals. He is a science team member for NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper belt. Throop has given hundreds of public talks across India, Africa and Mexico. He was awarded the American Astronomical Society's Carl Sagan Medal, and the US State Department's Avis Bohlen Award, for his work in science communication and outreach to the public.

Eric Wolff is a Royal Society Research Professor in Earth Sciences at Cambridge University. After graduating as a chemist, he has studied ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland for the past 30 years, using them to understand changing climate, as well as changing levels of pollution in remote areas. Until 2013, Eric worked at the British Antarctic Survey. He has been particularly involved in the EPICA project, which produced 800,000-year records of climate from an Antarctic ice core, and in work aimed at understanding how ice sheets were affected by warm periods in the past.